After success in Paris, Los Angeles wants to take the 2028 Olympic Games to the next level

After the successful 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, the bar has been set high for the next Summer Games in Los Angeles in 2028. Key stakeholders in that event say the city will be ready.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at the CNBC x Boardroom Game Plan sports event on Tuesday that what makes her anxious is “everything we have to do in our city to prepare” for the 2028 Games. However, she said that, just like the last time Los Angeles hosted the Olympics in 1984, she believes the city will not only improve to host the Games, but will also benefit from them once they’re over.

That includes work on public transportation. Bass said she hopes there will be “no cars driving to the venues” and that viewers will take public transportation to the Games — a promise that requires an investment in both bus and subway infrastructure, as well as partnering with other cities to borrow buses.

Bass said the city is also “doing everything we can to combat street homelessness,” including building more than 18,000 new housing units for the homeless population.

Bass said there will also be discussions with Los Angeles companies about scheduling to allow employees to work remotely during peak periods and ways to shift truck deliveries to overnight hours, as was done during the 1984 Olympics.

“I think there is a way to design the region to have less traffic and keep it manageable,” Bass said.

Casey Wasserman, the chairman of LA 2028, attended the Paris Olympics. According to Ross Sorkin, it was an event that “reminded people why they love the Olympics.” He said organizers want to build on that here in Los Angeles.

While no new permanent venues are being built for the Los Angeles Games, the first in Olympic history, there are challenges in utilizing all of the city’s landmarks the way Paris was able to showcase famous sites like the Eiffel Tower by hosting beach volleyball nearby. Wasserman said Los Angeles got a glimpse of that during the Olympic torch passing ceremony, when Tom Cruise climbed the Hollywood Sign and the Olympic rings replaced the “OO”s on the sign — a move Wasserman said was done with CGI.

“That’s obviously a longer, complicated conversation,” Wasserman said of changing the Hollywood Sign for the Games. “But I think it’s a pretty spectacular opportunity if there’s a way to do it.”

Actress Jessica Alba, who is on the Los Angeles 2028 board of directors, said the Games will showcase all the different aspects of the city’s culture, from Hollywood to fashion and food, as “a global platform to showcase what they have to offer.”

“LA is a main character,” Alba said. “We want it to be a main character during the Olympics.”

Disclosure: CNBC parent company NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. rightsholder for all Summer and Winter Games through 2032.